MSN Messenger Is The Largest Occupier Of Online Time

Microsoft owns the web. If you look at the time that Microsoft applications spend connected to it, the previous statement is proven without question. Who would think that a lowly IM application would be considered king of all in usage?

To some of you, this might be a shock. To the rest of you that prey on poor, unsuspecting girls with webcams… not so surprised.

Apparently 14.5% of all online time is spent on MSN Live Messenger — 14.5% of 27 billion total hours.

To put it into perspective, the next biggest service is Facebook at at 5.2% with YouTube coming in third at 4.4% (and Google’s biggest slice of the online pie.)

One has to wonder if people with Messenger logged in in the background counts towards the total — I imagine it does. So the totals are probably somewhat skewed — but in either case, you can find all of the data on the original comScore report. Perhaps most impressive is Facebook’s 200% climb in usage since the same time last year!

I guess this could also be used to make a case that the largest use of the internet is as a leisure activity, not something which is mostly a tool of work.

I know at my house, a great deal of time is spent watching all manner of nonsense on YouTube. It’s as if all the comedy that used to be located on television was pushed aside for reality shows, so it had to relocate on the web.

I suppose I should give Facebook a quick check, as it appears it is getting too big to ignore…